It's been only three years since Mike Daisey last exhilarated Bay Area audiences - with his potent (not to mention controversial) monologues "The Last Cargo Cult" and "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" at Berkeley Rep - but it feels much longer. That's not just because of the amount of hilarity and thought-provoking information he packs into his high-energy solos, but because of the number of new works we've missed in the interim - ranging from "How Theater Failed America" and "Private Manning's War" to the 24-hour marathon "All the Hours in the Day" and last fall's 29-day epic, "All the Faces of the Moon."

"Moon," he says, was an experiment with creating a 29-chapter novel day-by-day, and "the first time I've used a multimedia approach. But multimedia, for me, in this case meant using 29 oil paintings I commissioned from an artist who's a friend of mine."

We caught up with Daisey at his home in New York, just back from a quick trip to Cuba with an arts delegation and working on his next book, "Here at the End of Empire," before heading here to perform "American Utopias" at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Q:"American Utopias" - sounds made for the Bay Area. What can we expect?

A: It's a braided performance piece, three intertwined stories, but basically about the idea of utopia, how different groups of humans create spaces in which they dream together visions of future possibilities. So it's looking at three social experiments - Disney World, which I visited with my extended family. We spent a week together at Disney World. Yes, that's entirely too long, but most of them are dedicated worshipers of the Mouse. The second strand is about Burning Man, an anarchic state by definition. And the third is about Zuccotti Park and the birth of the Occupy movement.

Q:Your next piece is about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford?

A: "Dreaming of Rob Ford." I head to Toronto immediately following Yerba Buena. This is a kind of environmental piece - the environment is this defunct, abandoned porno theater, completely dilapidated, which is perfect for this monologue, because it's about the whole media and public fascination with this man, how we love to get outraged and shame and condemn. That whole public ritual.

Q:How does the private Mike Daisey differ from your onstage persona?

A: It is quite different. I'm not nearly as endearing in person. I'm actually very quiet. I do a lot of listening, which surprises most people who only know me from my stage appearances.

Q: Do you ever take any time off?

A: No. Not really. I think I don't feel the need to do that because I have a lot of obsessions. I get curious about all sorts of things and then I become obsessed with them. So I've sort of crafted a life as a monologist that allows me to pursue my obsessions in an unfettered way as far as they take me.